Michael Rocque is a Florida attorney who was appointed as a public defender for one of the victims c

Since the passage of the Comprehensive Crime Control Act of 1984 , one way police departments have been able to add a few extra thousand dollars to the department's bank account is by using the police tactic known as asset forfeiture.
As Mint Press News previously reported , under the Fourth Amendment, Americans are supposed to be protected from unlawful cheap last minute air line tickets search and seizure. But due to a loophole cheap last minute air line tickets in federal law, law enforcement can seize property — often without an arrest or a court hearing.
Though controversial, the practice of asset forfeiture legally allows law enforcement to seize a portion of the assets seized during drug raids and similar investigations. This means any drugs, money or property such as a car seized by law enforcement officials doesn't have to be taken from people who have already been convicted of a crime. Instead, asset forfeiture allows officers to take goods from innocent people if the officers suspect that person has committed a crime.
In the last decade, federal agencies have seized more than $20 billion in cash, stocks, cheap last minute air line tickets real estate, vehicles and other property, according to a report from Hearst Newspapers. In 2012, the average amount cheap last minute air line tickets seized per day was around $13 million .
But police officers in the suburban town of Sunrise, Fla. have taken the use of this practice one step further and have begun conducting reverse drug sting operations. Instead of posing as buyers, undercover officers are posing cheap last minute air line tickets as sellers.
As reported in the Florida Sun Sentinel , "Undercover detectives and their army of informants lure big-money drug buyers into the city from across the United cheap last minute air line tickets States, and from as far north as Canada and as far south as Peru. They negotiate the sale of kilos of cocaine in popular family restaurants, then bust the buyers and seize their cash and cars."
Why do they do this? The millions of dollars the officers are able to confiscate cheap last minute air line tickets from these drug deals goes to the department and helps the already cash-strapped law enforcement agencies pay their bills and officers, as well as purchase new equipment such as guns, radios, protective cheap last minute air line tickets gear, computers, training expenses and more.
Officers cheap last minute air line tickets who work these undercover reverse sting operations also receive quite a hefty overtime paycheck. According to the Sun Sentinel's investigation, a dozen undercover narcotics officers cheap last minute air line tickets have collectively earned $1.2 million in overtime cheap last minute air line tickets since 2010. One of the department's sergeants who helped run sting operations has been paid more than $240,000 in overtime during that time period.
"We're not talking about a few hours overtime," said Miami attorney Alan Ross, who has dissected Sunrise's practices in his defense of clients. "We're talking about police officers who are now making hundreds of thousands of dollars.
"If a cop stops a car going north with a trunk full of cocaine, that makes great press coverage, makes a great photo. Then they destroy the cocaine," said Jack Fishman, a former IRS special agent who is now a criminal defense attorney in Atlanta. "If they catch 'em going south with a suitcase full of cash, the police department just paid for its budget for the year."
Joel DeFabio is a Miami-based attorney who represented a southwest Florida man busted in a Sunrise cocaine sting. cheap last minute air line tickets He said that although the reverse stings sound illegal and improper, it's a legal endeavor "under our current law."
The Sunrise Police Department doesn't see anything wrong with its reverse sting operations. "Our job is to put bad guys in jail, and we do a good job of it," Criminal Investigations Capt. Robert Voss, who oversees the Sunrise Vice, Intelligence and Narcotics Division, said.
Voss declined to answer specific questions about the department's stings, its informants, the money the department obtained cheap last minute air line tickets through asset forfeiture cheap last minute air line tickets practices or the overtime paid to undercover cheap last minute air line tickets officers.
In an email to the Sun Sentinel , he wrote, "The Sunrise Police Department respectfully declines to participate in any further question/answer communications, whether by way of written correspondences or oral communications."
In 2010, the price for a kilo of cocaine in Sunrise ranged between $25,000 and $37,000. But in order to entice customers, the police department offered bulk-buy discounts and two-for-one deals to drug buyers. In one case, a man purchased two kilos for $23,000.
Michael Rocque is a Florida attorney who was appointed cheap last minute air line tickets as a public defender for one of the victims caught in the police department s reverse sting operations. He said, "I can see the police buying drugs from people, but the police selling drugs at discounted rates and [offering] buy-one-get-one[-free] and with super deals, it just seems wrong."
Philip Hilder is the former leader of the Justice Department's organized crime strike force in Houston. He said that due to ever-shrinking cheap last minute air line tickets law enforcement budgets, "the government is going seizure crazy ," meaning law enforcement agencies are supplementing their budgets with seizures.
"Asset forfeiture can be a valuable tool, but it can also be abused," Sen. Charles Grassley (Iowa), the ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said earlier this year. "It seems like there are places where we can take a hard look to improve the program instead of simply providing a slush fund for the federal government."
cheap last minute air line tickets As Mint Press News previously reported , for some the idea that law enforcement can financially benefit from the cases it prosecutes creates a conflict of interest. Steven L. Kessler, a forfeiture law expert, said the forfeiture laws may entice law enforcement to enact other policing-for-profit policies.
"If you create a monster, the monster must be fed," Kessler said. "It gives law enforcement the incentive cheap last minute air line tickets to go after things that may not be forfeitable but they still go after individuals for funds to increase the pot and pay themselves from that pot."